What is predestination?

What the Bible says

In Scripture, predestination is not a threat. It is the word believers use when they look back on their salvation with thanks. Paul writes to Christians under pressure.

For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers. And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified.

Rom 8:29-30

The goal of the predestining is stated: to be like the Son, as children in his family. Ephesians says the same.

For He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His presence. In love He predestined us for adoption as His sons through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will,

Eph 1:4-5

The choice is "in Him" and "in love." Jesus speaks in the same key.

Everyone the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will never drive away.

John 6:37

But Scripture also says that God's saving will reaches toward everyone.

who wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

1 Tim 2:4

Peter says God is "not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to repentance" (2 Pet 3:9), and John 3:16 speaks of God loving "the world."

Romans 9 is the heaviest passage. Paul quotes God's word to Moses and concludes that salvation "does not depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy" (Rom 9:16). Then he raises the obvious question himself.

One of you will say to me, “Then why does God still find fault? For who can resist His will?”

Rom 9:19

Paul answers by pointing to the Creator's relation to the creature (Rom 9:20-21), and later cries out, "O, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!" (Rom 11:33). The Bible holds God's sovereignty and his love for the world together without giving a formula that joins them.

The church's witness

How to read these texts together has divided the church. First, what is shared: salvation is a gift, not a reward; human faith is real and carries responsibility; and before God's will the right response is humility and thanks.

Augustine and the Reformed. Against Pelagius, Augustine taught that grace comes before any human choice. On John 6:37 he says that those foreknown and predestined by God "are already the sons of God, and cannot possibly perish" Augustine. Calvin carried this forward: God chose some for salvation from eternity, not for any merit or faith he foresaw in them Calvin, Institutes. This is unconditional election, confessed at the Synod of Dort (1618-19) and in the Westminster Confession. Both also speak of God passing over others, while insisting that the fault of unbelief lies in the sinner, not in God.

Lutherans. The Formula of Concord (1577) confesses that God chose believers in Christ before the foundation of the world, yet it speaks only of predestination to salvation, never to damnation. Salvation is wholly God's work, and condemnation wholly the result of unbelief. Why one believes and another does not, they leave as a mystery.

Arminians and Wesleyans. This tradition holds that election rests on God's foreknowledge: he knows who will answer his grace and chooses them in Christ. Faith is not self-generated. God's grace, given first to everyone (prevenient grace), makes the response possible. Passages like 1 Timothy 2:4 show for them God's universal desire to save.

Catholics and the Orthodox. The Catholic Church teaches that God predestines people to eternal life, but never to hell, and that grace comes first and is freely cooperated with. How grace and freedom fit was argued at length by Dominican Thomists and Jesuit Molinists, and in 1607 the pope ended the dispute without condemning either side. The Orthodox hold that God's foreknowledge does not cause events, and they understand salvation as cooperation between God and the person.

Matthew Henry calls the chain in Romans 8:30 "a golden chain, one which cannot be broken" Matthew Henry. On Ephesians 1:4 he writes, "All who are chosen to happiness as the end, are chosen to holiness as the means" Matthew Henry. Election calls to holiness; it does not excuse idleness.

In the original languages

The "predestined" of Romans and Ephesians is proorizo (προορίζω), "to mark out beforehand," found six times in the New Testament. What is marked out is a destination: we are appointed to "adoption as His sons" (Eph 1:5) and to be "conformed to the image of His Son."

"Foreknew" in Romans 8:29 is proginosko (προγινώσκω). In Scripture "to know" often means to know in relationship. God says through Amos, "Only you have I known from all the families of the earth" (Amos 3:2). The Reformed read it as "loved beforehand," Arminians and many Eastern Fathers as "saw beforehand." The word alone does not settle the debate.

"Chose" in Ephesians 1:4 is eklego (ἐκλέγω). In the New Testament "chosen" often points to the people of God as a whole, so some theologians place election's centre in the one Chosen One, Christ.

Common objections

"If God chooses some and not others, isn't that unfair?" This is the strongest objection, and Paul raises it himself in Romans 9:19. The Reformed answer that all are sinners, so mercy is never owed, and those passed over suffer no injustice. Matthew Henry says those who are saved "must thank God only; and those who perish, must blame themselves only" Matthew Henry. Arminians read Romans 9 as concerned with how God works through Israel and the nations in history, and they note that Pharaoh is also said to harden his own heart (Exod 8:15). Both readings have textual support. Where the pain remains, Christians point to the cross: God "did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all" (Rom 8:32).

"Then freedom is an illusion, and evangelism and prayer are pointless." Scripture draws no such conclusion. Acts 13:48 says "all who were appointed for eternal life believed," and it happened as Paul and Barnabas preached. Paul tells the Philippians to work out their salvation and adds, "For it is God who works in you" (Phil 2:12-13). For the Reformed, preaching is how God calls his chosen; for Arminians, it is a real invitation to all. Either way it is sincere.

"If election follows foreknown faith, doesn't salvation finally depend on me?" The Reformed press this on the Arminians, who reply that faith is an empty hand receiving a gift, not a work, and is itself enabled by grace. Both sides agree with Paul that God saved us "not because of our works, but by His own purpose and by the grace He granted us" (2 Tim 1:9).

Going further

In Scripture, predestination is not speculation but comfort. The golden chain of Romans 8 is followed by this: "If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Rom 8:31). Moses reminds us that "the secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us" (Deut 29:29). Calvin advised anyone anxious about being chosen to stop searching for a hidden decree and to look at Christ, who says "Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened" (Matt 11:28). For those who do not yet believe, the invitation is open: "the one who desires the water of life drink freely" (Rev 22:17).

Ask yourself: when I look back on how I came to faith, do I see an achievement or a gift? Which is easier for me to hold, God's sovereignty or his love for all, and am I neglecting the other? How do I treat Christians who read these texts differently?

To read further, see What is grace?, Is God in control? and Can salvation be lost?. Reading Romans 8 and 9 slowly, one after the other, is a good start.